


blow, you old Blue Norther

by garden of succulents (staranise)



Series: ain't licked yet [8]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, F/M, Healthy Relationships, M/M, Multi, Paganism, Polyamory, Schizoaffective Disorder, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 09:04:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7928878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staranise/pseuds/garden%20of%20succulents
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't know why you're fighting this," she says slowly. "You asked about Jack. He's been the sword in your heart for... as long as I've known you. And you finally got him back. Why not be happy?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	blow, you old Blue Norther

**Author's Note:**

  * For [itallstartedwithharry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/itallstartedwithharry/gifts).



> Thanks for everyone who wondered how Maida and Luis dealt with [this love came back to me](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7646641). I love when other people love my babies.

Kent honestly worries about the physical toll this much sex will have on Jack. Jack is pushing himself too hard. It's his first post-season and he's not pacing himself. It's been a damn long time since he's been in this kind of tournament; the Frozen Four is a _single weekend,_ not a gruelling march across the length of May. Jack's tackling his second series with even more fire than his first and sometimes it gives Kent flashbacks to the Memorial Cup, to the times Jack seemed so taut with tension a touch might make him snap, to the Cup run in 2013 when Jensy snapped his hamstring in practice. He went down beside Kent, who was so intent on his play that somebody else got to Jens first, that Kent only knew something was wrong when he looked back and saw a crowd of trainers and medics carrying Jens out. That was the last time they'd played together.

He's not a good enough person to worry about it when they're fucking, because every single time he's busy thinking: _Holy fuck, I'm fucking Zimms again._ No part of him is willing to push that away, push at the dark head between his thighs, or let Jack push away what uncoordinated efforts at lovemaking Kent feels capable of. When they're in a room together all he can really think about is that he finally gets to close the distance between them again.

It's once Jack's left the apartment and Kent thinks about getting off the bed that the worry comes back to him. He looks at the clock, automatically calculates how many hours before puck drop, and then thinks, queasy: _Should Jack have been working out that much before a game?_

It made sense, in the moment, for Kent to stop trying to force his screaming muscles and half-dead limbs to move; it was easy to lie back when Jack pushed him down and kissed him, then rode Kent's dick, doing all the work to hold himself up, or to bend forward to reach Kent's mouth with his own. It had felt like the _best_ fucking idea. But now Kent's worrying if he shouldn't have tried more, suggested something different, because the kind of leg strength necessary to push yourself up like that was _needed_ for a hockey game, and the kind of resource you had to conserve during Playoffs.

He loses time to lying there, naked in bed and feeling a crick start in his shoulder, wondering if he should text Bitty, and if so, what arguments to make. About Jack, about sex, about them, about calling this off. Then he thinks about how pissed Jack would be if Kent and Bitty two-teamed him into _anything_ , because as much as he still kind of bridles at Kent trying to use his experience to give advice, it would only get worse if Kent co-opted his boyfriend while he did it. He thinks about the fruitlessness of trying to talk to Falcs trainers, or coaches, or anyone. He thinks about packing up his stuff tonight, arranging a ride during the game, letting Jack come home to an empty apartment after he wins or loses. He debates the merits of going back to Manhattan, seeing his cat again, or joining Bitty at Samwell.

Before he can muster up enough fucks to actually do anything, his phone reminds him to take his medication. So he does, scraping himself out of bed and holding the footboard with one hand as he retrieves his underwear and t-shirt from the floor, then mustering both his canes and hobbling to the guest bedroom where he still, probably nonsensically, keeps his luggage.

When he's taken his pills and put some pants on he hobbles back to the bedroom, collects his phone, and then hobbles out to the living room, where he has enough grudging wisdom to make himself a sandwich and drink a glass of milk. Then he procrastinates from his anxiety about Jack by stepping into the brief respite from tension the new anxiety has left in the place of the old one, slips his earpiece from his pocket to his head, and calls Luis.

"My sunshine," Luis greets him, happy and steady and easy, and Kent has to close his eyes a bit because it always punches him in the guts a bit, how absolutely he can rely on him, how much he loves and misses this man. "Good to hear from you. How's New York?"

Kent smiles a little, slips to the floor and finds his canes. "I've been in Providence for the last week," he says, limping to the couch in Jack's living room. "My cat's probably torn up the sofa without me. How're you?"

"Ah?" Luis says inquisitively, and there's a pause before he has to concede that Kent's question has right-of-way. "I've been pretty good. Same old."

"How's Maida?"

"Uh, well, Maida's... okay, you know. Hanging in. She's out in the garden right now. Did you want to talk to her...?"

"After your turn," Kent assures him. He's arranged himself sideways in an armchair that by now he's starting to think of as his; it has a square outer construction, but cushions soft and large enough that it accommodates him whatever way he sits in it, which is usually sideways. "Yeah, I've... been at Jack's apartment all week." Then he's left hanging, a little helpless. That's as many words as he could pre-prepare in the interval between calling and getting to now.

"I know you stayed over after that game last week," Luis says, calm and thoughtful. "You decided to stay on after that?"

"Yeah," Kent says, scratching his forehead. "The crew came up with Bitty to watch the game, decorate Jack's apartment for him for when he got home. I got some good pictures." He's hoping maybe the threads of things Luis already knows will help carry him into the unknown. "Bitty and I stayed over, and Jack got back. He's, you know, a little tired, but not like he's... totally exhausted. I actually think he's having the time of his life right now." He closes his eyes, takes a breath, keeps trying to work closer to the center. "4-1 is actually a really good series, and other teams this round had to go 4-3, so he had a couple days to recover. He... Here, just give me a minute."

So Luis does. He holds the phone while Kent tries to see if there's a way that won't seem—that _will_ seem—that will express—but he doesn't know what he wants, and he thinks he just has to do it the clumsy way instead of letting the moment go past them.

"I slept with them," he says, then swallows to see if his throat will produce more words. "I mean, they asked me to. Or they kind of... They _wanted_ me to." He drops his head back on the headrest because the first thing that quavered out of his voice was a hint of wonder, which he still feels. _Can you believe it?_ But there's enough anxiety behind it, despite everything he's told himself his life is like, that he struggles to keep up the blithe illusion that this is sharing information, isn't like times he's told them about his hookups before, that it doesn't feel like a confession of doing something wrong. The back of his throat is thick with tears and he knows Luis can hear them gumming up his words when he says, "So I did."

"Holy shit," Luis says reverently. "You got the one that got away, at long last. How did it feel, baby?"

Kent lets out a messy breath, heart spasming with love. Intellectually he knew that he could never expect anything less than love and support, even if he were calling to break up with them. He knows that. But emotionally, this week, he's been... scared.

"It was so fucking good," he confesses. "I am so afraid to be this happy. I am so..." The tears come down his cheeks when he closes his eyes. "I feel so guilty, like I've done something wrong, like I'm gonna get in trouble because I'm trying to get away with something."

"Not with me," Luis says gently.

"I miss you," Kent blurts out. He sounds like a dope. Luis soaks it up with his understanding. "I love you so much, you know that?"

"I love you too," Luis says. "Baby, I am so happy for you. You know that I want the best for you."

"I always want to be with you," Kent says, closes his eyes and rests the back of his hand and arm across to rest them. A morbid part of the back of his head springs to attention and says, _That's a great thing to say if he's just decided he can't take the stress of caring for both of you, and you're doing well enough that he's going to cut you loose._ "I don't mean that you can't break up with me or whatever, because it's not just about me, but I..."

"I can promise you that I have no plans at present to dump you," Luis says, that kind of lovingly solemn way that means he's laughing in the back of his eyes. "I don't even have any present complaints about our relationship, other than the standing concern of distance, and you could maybe stand to call a little more."

"Did you get someone to come in and look after the house?" Kent asks, reminded of another standing issue—Maida's decreased ability to do housework—and what little he can do to assuage it with money.

"Kent," Luis singsongs, the way he does to call Kent's attention back when it's wandering. "The house is taken care of. Do you want to tell me about Eric and Jack?"

"Do you—" Kent hesitates. "Want to hear?"

"Kent, _mi amor_ ," Luis says, sweetly, then firm: "I want deets."

*

When Kent and Luis are done talking Luis goes to the back deck and calls to Maida, who shuffles in to take the phone. "Hey, Princess," he says to her. "How's your day?"

"Like crap," she sighs. "I haven't done anything all morning. I have text messages I still haven't replied to."

He bites his lip, and asks gently, "Luis said you were out in the garden?"

"Just lying on the swing under a fan," she says glumly. "The new roses I got from Amarillo are dying."

Kent has to fight the urge to push back at her, prod her into being positive. He's trying, a little bit, to roll with her. _Trust her,_ Luis says. _She's an adult. She can handle being this sad._ "Well's still going down, huh?"

Kent knows that Maida would like to be one of those hale and hearty people who can weather life's storms with happy indifference. She tries it with all her might, and wrestles the vast majority of shit she lives with with cynical flair. But one of the things she and Luis know from experience, that Kent is seeing now firsthand, is that her life and her garden are very much alike. She's a delicate ecosystem and thrives in a very particular climate, a narrow band of attention and connection and routine, and the more that's taken away from her, she begins to wilt. Literally, it feels like. Watching her retreat into her depressive episode has been like watching her shrink, tuck in on herself, turn into something withered and sharp with thorns.

It's a guilt Kent has to handle. This was probably inevitable from the moment he got injured, because they tell him there's no way he could have handled being hurt _without_ pain and distress and sadness; and either the vicarious experience of that, or the experience of his sudden absence in her life, would have kicked off a downspiral on her end, too. Everyone who knows him or them and has heard the story has told him so, and a lot of those people ought to know. They say it would have happened anyway.

But the shitty part, the kicker, was that he had to get injured and then _go to New York,_ stay with his family. Not a decision he knew enough at the time, or had enough lucid hours in the day, to really fight. They'd told him he was moving, and he was in enough pain that he just agreed. And Luis came with him, stayed with him, was wonderful and _amazing,_ for the first two and a half months, and Maida tried to tough it out alone, and then she moved in with her aunt in Utah, trying to use her family to stop the fall.

So Kent had Luis sleeping beside him like a lifeline through the worst time of his life, until he was enough better and Maida enough worse that Luis had to shift back west. He knew, accepted, that it was "bad"; knew that Maida got depressed. They reassured him that she wasn't suicidal, phoned as much as they could. He'd even fucking _envied her_ a little there, until he flew out to Vegas in February to see his team.

They told him long ago but it hadn't been real, he hadn't really remembered, until he saw her. Andromeda Hombrebueno doesn't "get depressed" the way Kent thinks of it, experiences it. She gets so sad her entire _world_ blurs at the edges. The colours on the things she touches begin to run with grief; the food she eats begins to move in her mouth. Things flicker with menace on the horizon and the breadth of the desert she loves so well turns into a wealth of places for everything but her to hide. She calls coworkers into the room to deal with snakes that aren't there, and state troopers pull over to the side of the road to ask why she's sitting in her car, because she's abruptly lucid and too terrified to drive home. She stockpiles things in her room, and then can't remember why they're there; the ability to pass windows without terror deserts her. She tried adjusting her meds twice before making the trip to Utah, where she'd had her aunt to help her keep track of the hours but the new doctor hadn't listened to her, had tried to taper her off one medication and put her on something else, and Luis had had to help her phone her Las Vegas doctor and have him send her old prescription by fax. These were things they didn't think Kent was well enough to hear at Christmas, when Luis saw how bad it was; by his visit in February she was just barely okay enough that she let him in to see.

It's the very end of April, and they've added something to her drug cocktail that beats back the hallucinations and delusions, that lifts her mood a bit, but she's still listless and exhausted and clearly, energetically, viciously depressed inside.

"The water table in the whole valley's down a foot," she says. "It'll probably go dry this summer. They installed our cistern last week. I have to go around the garden and decide what I'm going to kill. Fuck Nestlé."

Oh, and there's a drought. Because that's exactly what this year needed. The wildfires have already started. "Fuck Nestlé," he choruses. Campaigning against them seems to be the only thing that brings her joy these days.

There's a beat of quiet where neither of them have anything to say; Kent mentally discards several topics as too morbid or too cheerful before he finds something that feels right.

"Can you... do me a favour?" he asks. "I mean, say no if you want to or it doesn't feel right, but I could just... use it."

"Okay, what is it?"

"Could you lay out some cards for me? It's... there's been a lot of stuff this week, I'll tell you about it anyway, but I just... don't know how to feel about it, even."

It feels like the right way to tell her about Bitty and Jack, appealing to her strongest side; she might not be able to get out of bed in the morning, but even at her craziest she's still a poet and oracle. He goes to Luis for empathy and insight, but Maida's fortunetelling has an unnerving clarity for him. He's had his fortune told, or his aura read, by a lot of people, been in contact with a lot of seers and oracles since he started trying to find his own religion, and a lot of them have been people who tried to cozy up inside his skull and wanted to pick him apart. A lot of peoples' readings leave him feeling emotionally groped, invited into a closeness he isn't suited for and doesn't want. Compared to them, Maida flings tarot cards like challenges. She screams her truth over the walls of his fort, respecting immensely the need he has for them, and lets him tear his own heart out, or not.

Then, only because Kent's her boyfriend, she'll let him cuddle after. It's a definite perk, compared to people he's seen walk away with their fortunes looking like she just stuck a knife in their guts while laying out her cards.

So he tells her about Jack and Bitty while she searches out her decks, picks between them, clears a spot at the table and sits down to shuffle them. The story goes a little easier the second time, and he can hear the ripple of the cards as she listens. She has a casino dealer's hands.

"I just don't know if this is even healthy for any of us," he tells her, when the facts are all out. "This is terrible timing, because he's got the Playoffs, and..."

Well, he doesn't tell her _and_ , because nothing's been put down on paper for the _and_ , and he doesn't want to even hint to Luis yet that he might start a job in Arizona in August. He hasn't settled it over in his mind, and he wants to be sure before he calls the GM back. He's got other things to worry about right now. But there are reasons he might not be in New England as long as they thought, after all. (For one, he can't stand the weather anymore.)

"Okay," she says, summing up his indecision. "Want me to lay out four?"

"Yeah." He always defers to her judgement in these things. "What deck is it?"

"Pumpkin spice latte, you basic bitch," she says, and then bursts out laughing.

 _Pumpkin spice latte_ means it's the Rider-Waite, the OG deck _everybody_ uses, because she says that none of her other methods—not special decks, not the rituals she won't tell him about—really call out to her when it comes to him, and he'll have to actually settle his beliefs in something with history and community before they specialize. So for now they've just been using the tool that have guided countless other people through their first steps into paganism. He knows that, knows it's part of her affectionate mocking for his love of things at their most popular and least objectionable. That, he knows. But the laughter is prompted by something else that he can't see.

"I'm sorry," she says, trying to calm down. He doesn't tell her that he doesn't care, that it's good to hear her laugh at all. "Just, Kent, I drew your old friend Temperance."

"Oh, fuck Temperance," he says. It's his least favourite card in the deck, most likely to show up and tell him to chill the fuck out just when he wants to go overboard.

"Temperance loves you too," she says sweetly, then, "Okay," again, more businesslike. "We've got an Ace here too. So. Temperance is right in your helping position, where you'd expect her to be. First card I drew is the Three of Swords, reversed. So that's our problem. Hm."

"I don't remember which that one is," he prompts her.

"Three swords piercing a heart. Heartbreak." She hums a little while Kent's stomach clenches, because as much as he knew what this was going to be like, it's another thing to feel it. "It's a heartbreak, but it's not _sorrow._ It's an air card. Thought. Imagery. But not emotion. The heart's out of its chest."

"Like a... like an air burial," he says, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "Like in Nepal."

"Yeah," she agrees, and Kent thinks of bodies in the death zone that never decompose, because they're too high and too cold. "Reversed is about letting go. It's there, but you're learning to move past it."

"Mm," Kent manages hoarsely.

"What's standing in your way is... the Nine of Pentacles." Maida's a little bemused. "She doesn't usually go there. Happy card. People like her. Pretty woman in a garden surrounded by grapevines. She's wealth and prosperity. Reaping the harvest. Financial benefit. Earthly reward. If she were reversed I might warn you about overdoing it, but she's not. Oh, wait, I totally can.  Your friend Temperance is in the helping position."

"Like a hall monitor."

"Be nice to her. She's looking out for you." Maida hums again, thoughtful.

"Come on, hit me," Kent says. "What's the ace?"

Aces, they've discovered, make the most sense if they're intepreted as _him;_ he, the Ace, the son of fortune, has to carry a suit on his back. From the way Maida's taking so long he's a little afraid it's the Ace of Wands in the position of his future, because if there's one thing he can't do right now it's figure out where the _fuck_ he's going spiritually.

"Cups," she says. "Ace of cups, the flowing bowl, the goblet of happiness filled."

"Oh, _shit,_ " he says, because he doesn't know what to do with that. "What does that even _mean?"_

"You're going to be happy?" she suggests dryly.

"No, like... it's not a prediction, it's a task." That's what _she_ always tells  _him._  "Cups are emotions, right? Maybe it's just like an emotional beginning."

"I don't know why you're fighting this," she says slowly. "You asked about Jack. He's been the sword in your heart for... as long as I've known you. And you finally got him back. Why not be happy?"

"I don't want to be happy!" he says, tears springing to his eyes. "I'm not _supposed_ to be happy. And that's not what the Three means, anyway." He sniffs, wipes his nose with his wrist. "I don't wanna be happy with Jack, sit here and be his boyfriend while he wins the stupid Stanley Cup. I don't wanna be his _cheering section._ You know what I've been thinking? I brought the Cup to him, the first time I won it. How fucking _stupid_ ? I thought he'd be happy for me, I wanted him to be... but like, how could I not know how much that would _hurt?_ He doesn't wanna see the Stanley Cup, he wants to _lift_ it. He wanted to win _together._ I didn't think that heartbreak was me and Jack. You said it, and the first thing that I thought about was my injury, was the way they told me and I couldn't even feel it. I was so dissociated I was just thinking, I was just like, 'Oh, I can't play, I wonder what they'll do to the roster.' I feel like... my heart's just gonna freeze and turn black in my chest, because I can't even _feel_ it."

Maida waits a second, and then says, "For what it's worth, the ability to feel all the sadness you have in you is overrated. There's a lot to be said for anaesthesia."

He laughs, hoarsely, because if anyone gets to say that, it's Maida.

"Nine of Pentacles makes sense, though," she says. "If she's not for you. If she's standing by and watching someone else reap all the glory. Ruins your whole day."

"Yeah." He sits and breathes, and if he's honest, he feels a little bit short of breath, like he's still running on anger. He hadn't known it was there.

"Put it another way," she says. "Your _job_ is to be happy. Even if he wins the stupid Stanley Cup."

Kent makes a frustrated, strangled noise, and doesn't say (although he thinks) that she's letting her feelings interfere with the reading, and probably feeling like _she_ should shove _him_ off because she's a burden, dead weight pulling him down.  He's trying to make sense of it.  (Obvious interpretation, left unsaid: Temperance is telling him to try to hold all of this, feel all of this.  His joy over having Jack again and his jealousy that Jack is doing what he can't anymore, his guilt over taking Jack's time and energy and being away from Maida, his love for all of them and his heartbreak for himself.  To give space to all of his feelings, instead of listening to whichever is shouting the loudest at any one minute.) "Can you describe the Ace of Cups to me?" he asks, to stall.

"It's like the Holy Grail, the Communion chalice," she says, "or the cauldron where the dead come back to life. The Waters of Life. A bird's bringing a wafer down to it. It has the divine spirit in it. It's being offered on a hand, and the waters fall onto a lake. It's like an invitation, an offering. To drink and be reborn."

Kent closes his eyes and thinks: _If Aces are me, I'm not being offered the cup. I_ _am_ _the cup. I'm supposed to_ _be_ _the cup._

"It could just _be_ the Stanley Cup," she says suddenly. "Kinda looks like it."

He can't resist blowing a raspberry at her, because she loves suggesting facile, crowd-pleasing explanations just to be a shit. What he's actually thinking is about cisterns, about dry wells, about aquifers. About Arizona. He thinks, suddenly, that his major hesitation about a coaching job was how hard it would be to watch players when he really wanted to _be_ one of them.

"Yeah, I don't know," he says. "Thank you for the reading. I..."

"I love you," she says in the tiniest voice.

"Oh god, I love you too," he says. "Look, um, can I ask you a question?" He's suddenly taut, thinking of her thinking she's losing him, running a hand through his hair. "Just, um. Not binding or anything, think on it and get back to me. But, like. I know... you kind of moved to Vegas because Luis was in school there. And I know you love where you are a whole lot, you know the mountains and that stuff. And I know you have to stay in the desert. But I just kind of wanted to know, um... do you _have_ to stay there? Like, there, on that patch of land, twenty miles from Henderson. Like, if maybe you could move your garden somewhere else. Is there anywhere... else you'd be willing to live? And what would that look like." His heart is racing, and he abruptly feels like he's talked too much. "Just asking. No, no pressure."

"I don't think," she says, and something mischievous has crept into her voice, "they play too much hockey in Mexico. So I should limit my answer."

"Uh," Kent says, "Um. Maybe. Yes? Within the US."

(He has a sudden, vivid, arousing memory of other times she's caught him out, left him dry-mouthed and nervous while she smiled, smug and playful, and took advantage of his weaknesses.)

"Well," she says, and he can hear her smiling, "how about I think about it and get back to you?"

"Please do," he says. "I love you."

"When you see Jack and Eric again, give them a kiss for me, all right? I love you. I'm glad for you."

"Yeah," he agrees.

She says something in K'iche' that he suspects is either a blessing or an endearment, though he knows she'll never tell him which. He'll have to learn the language on his own if he wants to know. He tells her to take care of herself, and talk to Luis about his question. They hang up.

Then he takes a painkiller and has a shower, and gets out in time to watch Jack creep a little closer to the Stanley Cup.

When the game is over, but before Jack comes home, he places a call to Arizona.


End file.
